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Summer in Odessa, Ukraine (2016)

Odessa (Ukrainian spelling: Odesa) is Ukraine’s third largest city, located on the Black Sea coast. Odessa is a major seaport and transportation hub and an attractive tourist destination. Mainly frequented by Ukrainian and Russian tourists, Odessa is known for its beaches, clubs, nightlife, but also for cultural events. There is a huge variety of restaurants and bars, catering to all culinary tastes.

In this video, you can see some footage from my visit to Odessa in July 2016. The beaches shown in the video are Langeron Beach and Arcadia Beach. The beach club in the last part of the video is Ibiza Beach Club on Arcadia Beach, an upscale location with nice swimming pools and great Ibiza style house music, but comparatively high prices for drinks and loungers.

The water quality of the Black Sea was quite poor. The water was oily and contained plenty of algae. It was better to use the swimming pools of the beach clubs. English was not widely spoken, as the tourist industry is fully oriented towards Russian visitors.

We left the city with mixed feelings. There were lots of good restaurants and cultural attractions and we enjoyed walking along the beaches. The area around the Opera House and Potemkin stairs was really nice. Odessa’s pop-up coffee trucks provided great refreshments at very affordable prices. However, we would not recommend Odessa for a proper beach holiday. Compared to other beach towns in Europe, the infrastructure just doesn’t meet certain standards yet.